South Florida's Haitian community, the largest in the nation, decried and condemned Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for migrants who fled violence and natural disaster in Haiti, exposing them to potential deportation.
Leaders with the North Miami-based Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center warned the decision will have "devastating consequences" for hundreds of thousands of families across South Florida and the nation.
"For many Haitian TPS holders, the United States is home. Florida is home. Miami is home," the organization stated, noting that TPS holders are deeply woven into the local fabric as healthcare workers, taxpayers, and entrepreneurs.
Sant La also sounded the alarm over the prospect of forced returns to Haiti, describing the country as engulfed in an "unprecedented humanitarian, political, and security crisis" defined by widespread violence and collapsing infrastructure. The group labeled any efforts to deport individuals under these conditions as "inhumane," "reckless," and "dangerous."
"Our families will not face this crisis alone," the organization declared. "We stand with them, we will fight with them, and we will not abandon them."
READ MORE: Supreme Court allows Trump administration to end legal protections for Haitians
Elected leaders and others who support TPS for Haitians expressed similar warnings in denouncing the high court judges' decision that also included the loss of TPS for Syrian migrants in the U.S.
“This is a disaster for Florida, home to the largest Haitian population in the US and over 17,000 Syrians, and a grave injustice to those who have sacrificed everything to build new lives in the United States and have added immeasurably to our communities," said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried in a statement.
Several Democratic candidates running for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House in November slammed the Supreme Court decision and the Trump Administration.
“This ruling is not just unfair, it’s a broken promise," said U.S. Senate candidate Alex Vindman in a statement. "It pulls the rug out from under people who came here legally under TPS after fleeing violence, political persecution, and natural disasters, like the devastating earthquake that struck Venezuela yesterday.
“I am heartbroken and infuriated by the Supreme Court's despicable decision on TPS for Haitians and Syrians," said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, who has long supported extending TPS for Haitians and other immigrant groups.
“This callous ruling will have devastating implications for 1.3 million TPS recipients who have been targeted by Trump despite abiding by the law and contributing to Florida's economy," she said in a statement. "The Court selectively ignored Trump's open racism against Haitians to imply that race was not a factor in this case. We all know better."
Two congressional candidates for Florida's 24th district — Shevrin Jones and Oliver Gilbert — said the judges decision was immoral. Both are competing are among several running to replace outgoing U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami Gardens.
"Haiti remains in the grip of a devastating humanitarian crisis, ravaged by gang violence, political instability, and the long shadow of natural disasters," Jones said. "To send people back into that chaos is unconscionable."
"The Court has looked away from that reality, and from the mountain of evidence showing that this termination was driven not by law or policy — but by racial animus toward Black immigrants," Jones added.
Said Gilbert: "In FL 24, Haitian families are our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends. They're part of us. They always will be. In Congress, I'll fight to protect TPS and end these deportations."
Thursday's 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
The Trump administration argued that judges can't second-guess immigration officials' decisions about the protections, which were intended to be temporary.
Immigration attorneys said the countries remain unsafe to return, and the administration ended them in an unlawfully hasty process tinged by racial animus.
The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after judges postponed the end of the program for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The high court sided with the administration before and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela.
Federal authorities deny that racial animus played a role. They also cited a Supreme Court decision from Trump's first term that rejected bias claims based on his social media posts and upheld a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries.
DHS has ended the protections people from 13 countries since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, including some that had been in place for more than a decade.
The House passed legislation with a rare bipartisan vote in April that would extend protections for Haitians, though the bill has languished in the Senate.
The U.S. first granted protections to Haitians in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake, and extended them multiple times amid ongoing gang violence that has displaced more than a million people, according to court documents.
TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife and other instability. It allows people already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months, but it doesn't provide a path to citizenship.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
